Enlarge image
Biden displayed a homemade firearm
PHOTO: KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS
In the fight against rampant gun violence in the United States, President Joe Biden's government has passed stricter rules for so-called ghost guns.
As Biden said in the White House rose garden, the most important individual parts of such weapons, which can be assembled by the buyer himself, will have to be serialized in the future.
Also, like regular firearms, merchants are required to perform a background check on the purchaser when selling spirit weapons.
Biden complained about the rapid spread of ghost weapons, which are ordered as kits on the Internet and have so far been very difficult to trace due to missing serial numbers.
Last year, the investigative authorities confiscated around 20,000 suspected ghost weapons.
That's a tenfold increase in five years.
"These weapons are the weapons of choice for many criminals," said the President, who displayed a kit of weapons in the White House Rose Garden.
"It's not difficult to put them together," Biden said.
"Criminals, terrorists and domestic abusers can assemble a gun from a kit of guns in just 30 minutes."
The new rules on ghost weapons are therefore not "extreme," said Biden.
"They are common sense."
The new US government regulation makes it clear that ghost guns are subject to the same requirements as other firearms.
In addition, arms dealers who come into possession of spirit weapons that are already in circulation are obliged to subsequently provide them with a serial number.
kim/AFP/Reuters